Author: CaptainWes

What a January!  Above is Paul Terrell of Mebane, NC with his new Kerr Lake personal best of 56 pounds 🙂

Above is my wife, Brett, with a pair of 30 pound fish we caught in the annual IceBowl tournament!  We were proud to be a sponsor again this year.  While we didn’t catch the one we were looking for, we still ended up having a great day and landed 13th out of 185 boats.

Of course, the day after the tournament we caught one that would have ended up putting us in the top 3!  Oh well….that is the way it goes.  But the good news is that we are on a really good pattern right now, so come fish with us while it lasts!

June fishing was better than normal!  The rain we have had has kept the water cool, so the cats seem to be holding off on the spawn a few weeks longer than the last few years.  We’ve enjoyed some great numbers of fish, as well as our share of citations.  However, I anticipate that the spawn will make the fishing tough through July-August as it normally does.  I am planning to take a short break from charters during this time as I get some things done around the house, but will be booking again towards the end of August as the fish transition to a post-spawn pattern.

 

May made for some great fishing!  We targeted the rivers for cats and routinely had 25-35 fish days.  We also had our first night trips of the year which yielded plenty of nice fish and plenty of excitement.  The spring crappie bite was still pretty steady through May, although it has started tapering off the last week and the size of the fish has declined.  On the plus side, the cat fishing looks like it will remain solid into June.

As usual, April was a great month to fish….it remained chilly and things got a bit of a late start, but hopefully that just means we get to enjoy more spring fishing!  The larger crappie have spawned and are now feeding heavily, while many of the smaller crappie have just moved into the backs of the creeks.  The cat fishing has been great as well, with our first few flatheads of the season and some really nice blues!  Austin Sartin put H.R. Carver and crew on the fish of a lifetime, one they will certainly never forget 🙂  As the weather warms up, remember to take a kid fishing!

I had the opportunity to work with one of my sponsors on a Kerr Lake video in late March.  We had an absolute blast catching striper and cats.   Mitch came down from Montana and got his hands full with a new personal best blue cat.  Can’t wait to share the footage from this one!  Keep your eyes peeled on our video section for updates.

March is by far one of my favorite months to be on the water!  Crappie, perch, striper, and catfish are all busy eating away this month.  You can catch numbers of fish, you can catch huge fish.  The weather is generally very comfortable.  What’s not to love about this month!?!?
So don’t hesitate…call us today to get in on the action!

Well the conditions have flipped yet again! Warm February weather and a fair amount of rain has prompted some fish to start moving back up the lake and into the feeder creeks.  With water temps climbing into the upper 40’s-low 50’s, many crappie have transitioned into a pre-spawn pattern.  Spider rigging and long-lining catches the most fish this time of year and 5-15 fow seems to be the most productive depths. This is a great time of year to catch a citation crappie as the fish are usually filled out nicely in preparation for the spawn!  The catfish are still a bit more scattered.  Some cats have followed the crappie and perch into shallower water, while other fish will remain deep until the temperatures become more stable.  Anchoring and drifting are both effective means to catch fish this month! Tight lines

The Ice Bowl tournament is behind us and NC has yet another win under it’s belt! Largely thanks to Brad “The Grateful” Smalt and Joel Boyd, who landed a 103 pound blue catfish to win the tournament.  I actually met Brad at the Icebowl about 8 years ago, and I have seen him there every year since.   He is a great fisherman and he fishes hard, so congrats to him and his partner for a well-deserved win!  This makes the second year in a row that a 100+ pound fish was caught in this tournament.  This year also boasted a record turnout of over 200 boats, making it the largest catfish tournament in the country to date!  I am always ecstatic to be a part of this great tournament and I was proud to be a sponsor this year 🙂

January has packed some brutal cold fronts so far, and water temps have plummeted into the low 30’s.  To the delight of seagulls and blue catfish, most lakes in the area suffered a significant shad kill this month.  These cold temps combined with the lack of rain has pushed most cats towards deeper water.  Anchoring has produced the most fish for us, with shad being by far the most productive bait.  Most of our fish have came from 50+ fow and were covered in mud, which tells me that they are hanging tight to the bottom.  While the conditions have been tough, the fishing has remained good for the most part!  If you can tolerate the temps, you will be surprised how hot the action can be during this cold weather 🙂

 

Wanted to switch it up a little bit for this month’s fishing report and tell you all how great the crappie fishing has been!  We’ve been on a pretty solid pattern now that most of the fish have started transitioning to deeper brush piles.  We’ve caught fish on a combination of jigs and fire-dyed minnows in 15-25 feet of water.  Some days the fish are holding tight to the brush and other days the fish are scattered around it.  On windy days, the fish will usually face into the wind, so keep this in mind when deciding how to position your boat.  Hope this helps ya’ll get on some fish!